The origin of magnetization-caused increment in water oxidation.

Magnetization promoted activity of magnetic catalysts towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has attracted great attention, but remains a puzzle where the increment comes from. Magnetization of a ferromagnetic material only changes its magnetic domain structure. It does not directly change the spin orientation of unpaired electrons in the material. The confusion is that each magnetic domain is a small magnet and theoretically the spin-polarization promoted OER already occurs on these magnetic domains, and thus the enhancement should have been achieved without magnetization. Here, we demonstrate that the enhancement comes from the disappeared domain wall upon magnetization. Magnetization leads to the evolution of the magnetic domain structure, from a multi-domain one to a single domain one, in which the domain wall disappears. The surface occupied by the domain wall is reformatted into one by a single domain, on which the OER follows the spin-facilitated pathways and thus the overall increment on the electrode occurs. This study fills the missing gap for understanding the spin-polarized OER and it further explains the type of ferromagnetic catalysts which can give increment by magnetization.

Employing defected monolayer MoS2 as charge storage materials.

Recently, various two-dimensional (2D) materials have been employed in charge trapping memories as the charge trapping layer instead of conventional metal/semiconductor thin films or discrete particles. Such ultra-thin charge trapping layers are beneficial to the development of miniaturized devices, which is a trend in modern semiconductor technology. 2D MoS2 is an alternative charge trapping material, but previous investigations have been limited to their multilayers. Here, we present the study on employing monolayer MoS2 as charge trapping layer in charge trapping devices. We found that intrinsic monolayer MoS2 is less effective for charge trapping; while defective monolayer MoS2 shows enhanced charge storage capacity. By employing argon plasma treatments, we are able to control the defect density in monolayer MoS2 and the memory window of monolayer MoS2 based charge trapping devices can vary from 1.01 to 5.14 V at a sweeping voltage of ±20 V and program/erase slope from 0.06 to 0.32. Optimized devices show ∼1 ms program/erase speed, >70% charge retention after ∼7000 s and good endurance properties with >1000 cycles. The enhancement of the memory window is attributed to the localized charge tapping sites in defected monolayer MoS2. This work would provide insights for the improvement of storage capacity through defects engineering in the atomically thin 2D materials.

Argon Plasma Induced Phase Transition in Monolayer MoS2.

In this work, we report a facile, clean, controllable and scalable phase engineering technique for monolayer MoS2. We found that weak Ar-plasma bombardment can locally induce 2H→1T phase transition in monolayer MoS2 to form mosaic structures. These 2H→1T phase transitions are stabilized by point defects (single S-vacancies) and the sizes of induced 1T domains are typically a few nanometers, as revealed by scanning tunneling microscopy measurements. On the basis of a selected-area phase patterning process, we fabricated MoS2 FETs inducing 1T phase transition within the metal contact areas, which exhibit substantially improved device performances. Our results open up a new route for phase engineering in monolayer MoS2 and other transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials.

Mercury (II) adsorption from aqueous solution using nitrogen and sulfur co-doped activated carbon.

Activated carbon (AC) was modified with urea, thioglycolic acid and thiourea to obtain nitrogen doped activated carbon (ACN), sulfur doped activated carbon (ACS) and nitrogen and sulfur co-doped activated carbon (ACNS), respectively. The AC samples were characterized by elemental analysis, N2 adsorption-desorption, determination of the pH of the point of zero charge (pHpzc) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and tested for adsorption behaviors of Hg(II) ions. The experimental data of equilibrium isotherms fitted well with the Langmuir model. ACNS showed the highest adsorption capacity of 511.78 mg/g, increasing more than 2.5 times compared to the original ACA. The adsorption process followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. The thermodynamic parameters of ΔH°, ΔS°, and ΔG° at 30 °C were -20.57 kJ/mol, -0.032 kJ/mol K and -10.87 kJ/mol, respectively. It was concluded that the Hg(II) ions' adsorption on ACNS was exothermic, spontaneous and physiosorptive in nature. Finally, the adsorption capacity of ACNS reduced by just 8.13% even after the sixth cycle compared to the initial cycle.

Precisely Aligned Monolayer MoS2 Epitaxially Grown on h-BN basal Plane.

Control of the precise lattice alignment of monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is important for both fundamental and applied studies of this heterostructure but remains elusive. The growth of precisely aligned MoS2 domains on the basal plane of h-BN by a low-pressure chemical vapor deposition technique is reported. Only relative rotation angles of 0° or 60° between MoS2 and h-BN basal plane are present. Domains with same orientation stitch and form single-crystal, domains with different orientations stitch and from mirror grain boundaries. In this way, the grain boundary is minimized and a continuous film stitched by these two types of domains with only mirror grain boundaries is obtained. This growth strategy is also applicable to other 2D materials growth.

Rolling Up a Monolayer MoS2 Sheet.

MoS2 nanoscrolls are formed by argon plasma treatment on monolayer MoS2 sheet. The nanoscale scroll formation is attributed to the partial removal of top sulfur layer in MoS2 during the argon plasma treatment process. This convenient, solvent-free, and high-yielding nanoscroll formation technique is also feasible for other 2D transition metal dichalcogenides.

Thermally Induced Graphene Rotation on Hexagonal Boron Nitride.

In this Letter, we report the observation of thermally induced rotation of graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). After the rotation, two thermally stable configurations of graphene on h-BN with a relative lattice twisting angle of 0° (most stable) and 30° (metastable), respectively, were found. Graphene on h-BN with a twisting angle below (above) a critical angle of ∼12±2° tends to rotate towards 0° (30°) at a temperature of >100 °C, which is in line with our theoretical simulations. In addition, by manipulating the annealing temperature and the flake sizes of graphene, moiré superlattices with large spatial periods of graphene on h-BN are achieved. Our studies provide a detailed understanding of the thermodynamic properties of graphene on h-BN and a feasible approach to obtaining van der Waals heterostructures with aligned lattices.

Nanographene charge trapping memory with a large memory window.

Nanographene is a promising alternative to metal nanoparticles or semiconductor nanocrystals for charge trapping memory. In general, a high density of nanographene is required in order to achieve high charge trapping capacity. Here, we demonstrate a strategy of fabrication for a high density of nanographene for charge trapping memory with a large memory window. The fabrication includes two steps: (1) direct growth of continuous nanographene film; and (2) isolation of the as-grown film into high-density nanographene by plasma etching. Compared with directly grown isolated nanographene islands, abundant defects and edges are formed in nanographene under argon or oxygen plasma etching, i.e. more isolated nanographene islands are obtained, which provides more charge trapping sites. As-fabricated nanographene charge trapping memory shows outstanding memory properties with a memory window as wide as ∼9 V at a relative low sweep voltage of ±8 V, program/erase speed of ∼1 ms and robust endurance of >1000 cycles. The high-density nanographene charge trapping memory provides an outstanding alternative for downscaling technology beyond the current flash memory.

Tunable piezoresistivity of nanographene films for strain sensing.

Graphene-based strain sensors have attracted much attention recently. Usually, there is a trade-off between the sensitivity and resistance of such devices, while larger resistance devices have higher energy consumption. In this paper, we report a tuning of both sensitivity and resistance of graphene strain sensing devices by tailoring graphene nanostructures. For a typical piezoresistive nanographene film with a sheet resistance of ∼100 KΩ/□, a gauge factor of more than 600 can be achieved, which is 50× larger than those in previous studies. These films with high sensitivity and low resistivity were also transferred on flexible substrates for device integration for force mapping. Each device shows a high gauge factor of more than 500, a long lifetime of more than 10(4) cycles, and a fast response time of less than 4 ms, suggesting a great potential in electronic skin applications.

Isolated nanographene crystals for nano-floating gate in charge trapping memory.

Graphene exhibits unique electronic properties, and its low dimensionality, structural robustness, and high work-function make it very promising as the charge storage media for memory applications. Along with the development of miniaturized and scaled up devices, nanostructured graphene emerges as an ideal material candidate. Here we proposed a novel non-volatile charge trapping memory utilizing isolate and uniformly distributed nanographene crystals as nano-floating gate with controllable capacity and excellent uniformity. Nanographene charge trapping memory shows large memory window (4.5 V) at low operation voltage (±8 V), good retention (>10 years), chemical and thermal stability (1000°C), as well as tunable memory performance employing with different tunneling layers. The fabrication of such memory structure is compatible with existing semiconductor processing thus has promise on low-cost integrated nanoscale memory applications.